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Indus Valley Civilization PDF
Indus Valley Civilization PDF
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What came to be called Hinduism was an amalgamation of beliefs and practices from several sources. This
chapter focuses on the first of the two major contributors: the Indus Valley Civilization. In subsequent
chapters we will focus on the second: the Indo-Aryans. The discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization in
the nineteenth century revealed a sophisticated and long-forgotten ancient culture that appears to have
contributed to the development of the Hindu traditions. In this chapter, we examine the architectural ruins
and artifacts left by this civilization and contemplate their import for its inhabitants and for subsequent
Hindu history. This examination reveals that Indus Valley religion focused on maintaining ritual purity and
appropriating divine powers to assist in reproduction and the maintenance of life. Finally, we introduce the
Indo-Aryans with a brief discussion of their relationship to the dwellers of the Indus Valley.
Two major cultural streams contributed to was then northwestern India and is now Paki-
the development of what later came to be stan stumbled upon the remains of an ancient
called Hinduism. The first was an intriguing city known only to locals. The engineers were
and sophisticated ancient culture known today only interested in the well-fired bricks from the
as the Indus Valley Civilization. The second ruins, and they proceeded to quarry the city for
source was a nomadic people called the Indo- that resource. It was not until the early twenti-
Aryans, whom most scholars believe migrated eth century, as other similar sites were uncov-
into India from Central Asia and bequeathed ered, that archaeologists appreciated the full
to Hindus their most sacred texts and rituals. significance of this unwitting discovery. They
In this and the next two chapters, we will study determined that the ancient city, now reduced
each of these cultures and explore their respec- to railroad ballast, was part of a vast network of
tive influences on the evolution of the Hindu villages and towns constituting an entire civili-
Traditions (box 1.1). zation long forgotten by the rest of humanity.
The discovery of this ancient culture, one of the
most remarkable archaeological finds of modern
The Indus Valley Civilization times, compelled scholars to revise their under-
standing of the earliest history of India and has
In the nineteenth century, British engineers in recent years sparked a heated debate about the
searching for ballast for a railway line in what original inhabitants of the Indian Subcontinent.
15
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The Indus Valley Civilization, so named as impressive as ancient Egypt and Sumeria.
because many of its settlements were situated While many Hindus today do not regard the
T h e H i n d u T r a d i t i o n s Part I—India’s Early Cultures
along the Indus River, turned out to be one of Indus Valley Civilization as part of their sacred
the great cultures of the ancient world.1 What history, the evidence suggests that this culture
has come to light since the first excavations contributed significantly to the grand complex
suggests that the Indus Valley Civilization was known to many as Hinduism.
What is known about the Indus Valley cul- fied as villages or towns. The largest and most
ture comes exclusively from archaeological evi- important are cities known as Mohenjo-daro
0 400 miles
0 400 km
AFGHANISTAN CHINA
Islamabad
H
IRAN Lahore i
Harappa m
a
l
PAKISTAN NEPa y a
R.
us
Ind .
Mohenjo-daro R Delhi AL s
ar
Ghagg
Arabian Ahmadabad
Sea
INDIA
Major Harappan sites
Other archaeological sites
Modern cities Mumbai
Existing rivers
Former rivers Bay of
Extent of Harappan civilization Bengal
Fig. 1.1 The Indus Valley Civilization. The Indus Valley Civilization was spread throughout the northwestern part of the
Indian Subcontinent in an area roughly the size of Texas. (Mapping Specialists.)
organization. But aside from the urban consis- Purity and Pollution
tency that indicates central administration, we One of the most obvious and intriguing fea-
T h e H i n d u T r a d i t i o n s Part I—India’s Early Cultures
know very little about the way Indus dwellers tures of the Indus cities is the evidence that
governed themselves or structured their soci- points to an intense concern with cleanliness.
ety. We also know little about their economy Private homes were furnished with sophisti-
except that village life focused on agriculture cated indoor bathing and toilet facilities that
and cattle herding and life in the larger cities were plumbed and lined with ceramic tiles in a
centered on the production of arts and crafts. relatively modern way. The plumbing and sewer
The discovery of Indus Valley artifacts as far systems were superior to those found in other
away as Mesopotamia and Central Asia sug- cultures of the time and are in fact superior to
gests that trade played a significant role in the facilities found in many Indian and Pakistani
Harappan economy. homes today. Not only did individual homes
Although the archaeological data do not feature advanced lavatories, but municipali-
tell the complete story of this society, they do ties did as well. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa
reveal enough for scholars to make informed each had a large central bath with public access
judgments about its worldview and religious (figure 1.2). These public baths predate similar
practices. Yet, since literary sources are unavail- facilities in ancient Rome by many centuries.
able for corroboration, and because the arti- The ubiquity of the baths, their central loca-
facts are often ambiguous, these judgments tions, and the care with which they were con-
remain conjectures and are frequently debated structed all point to a deep preoccupation with
by experts. We will consider the archaeological purity and cleanness.
discoveries that appear to have religious import Almost certainly, this concern was more
and attempt to comprehend what they tell us than a matter of bodily hygiene. Like many
about the Indus culture and its possible impact premodern cultures, and like Hindus today, the
on the development of the Hindu Traditions. Indus dwellers were probably anxious about
ritual purity. Ritual purity, as compared to not always explicit or written into law. Unspo-
hygiene, involves more than removing the sweat ken taboos are often laid upon those areas of
Fig. 1.3
Bathing in
the Ganges.
Bathing for ritual
purification is
still an important
aspect of the
religious practice
of most Hindus.
(Photo courtesy of
Creative Commons,
Ilya Mauter.)
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The kinds of activities considered to be ritually polluting vary from culture to culture and from time to time.
There is often great variation within cultures as well. The following list delineates some of the activities that
different religious traditions (or parts of those traditions) have regarded as unclean.
Judaism Shinto
• Eating pork, shellfish, catfish, amphibians, • Sickness
reptiles, bats, birds of prey, and snails • Contact with blood
• Eating meat that has not been slaughtered in a • Death, especially that of one’s father
prescribed manner • Speaking taboo words
• Eating with non-Jews or using utensils used by • Wearing shoes in a home
non-Jews • Wicked thoughts
• Drinking wine made by non-Jews
• Touching a dead body, a human bone, or a Zoroastrianism
grave • Contact with dead bodies
• Touching someone with leprosy • Coming into contact with snakes, flies, ants, or
• Menstruation wolves
• Abnormal bodily discharges • Sickness
• Childbirth • Body waste such as excrement and clipped hair
• Sexual intercourse or nails
• Masturbation • Menstruation
• Miscarriage or stillbirth
Islam
• Touching a pig or dog Hinduism
• Menstruation • Tanning and leatherwork
• Eating pork, amphibians, reptiles, bats, and • Eating meat
birds of prey • Death
• Consuming alcohol • Contact with dead bodies
• Eating meat that has not been slaughtered in a • Scavenging
prescribed manner • Menstruation
• Defecating • Eating food prepared by a person of a lower
• Touching a corpse that is unwashed and has caste
become cold • Childbirth
• Sleep or other forms of unconsciousness • Eating with the left hand
• Flatulence • Touching or seeing someone who is unclean
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There, devout Hindus restore the pristine order cance of the images on the seals is still a matter
that might have been disrupted by inappropri- of speculation and debate.
Fig. 1.4 Seals. Steatite, or soapstone, seals provide archaeological evidence for much of our understanding of Indus Valley
religious practices. (Four on left: Scala / Art Resource, N.Y. Four on right: Borromeo / Art Resource, N.Y.)
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is the male sex represented almost exclusively sexually potent animals, the dwellers of the
in animal rather than human form? Why do Indus Valley may have intended to acquire that
T h e H i n d u T r a d i t i o n s Part I—India’s Early Cultures
the images accentuate the animals’ horns and potency for themselves. Furthermore, it is pos-
flanks? Do the animals have religious impor- sible that the animals themselves were regarded
tance, as suggested by what appear to be ritual as sacred because of their sexual prowess. If so,
objects on some of the seals? If the seals have they may have been worshiped and made the
religious meaning, why would they have been objects of cultic practice. Its frequent appear-
used for commercial purposes, such as mark- ance in these designs might indicate that the
ing property for trade? Why are some of the bull was the principal object of veneration.
animals realistic and others imaginary? Efforts Further underscoring the Indus Valley cul-
to answer these questions will be speculative, of ture’s captivation with sexuality is the discov-
course, but not necessarily uninformed. What ery of numerous terra-cotta figurines depicting
we know of other ancient cultures and later women with exaggerated hips, full thighs, bare
Hindu beliefs and practices can help guide our breasts, and elaborate hairstyles. While men
hypotheses. But because answers cannot be seemed somehow insufficient to symbolize
certain without confirmation from literary or male sexuality in this society, the same was not
other sources, they must be held tentatively and true of women (figure 1.5).
kept always open to revision. Whether these images signify human
With this caveat in mind, let us try to elu- women or goddesses (or different manifesta-
cidate the meaning of these unusual images. tions of a single goddess) cannot be ascertained
To begin, we may reasonably conclude that the by examining the figurines alone. But two fac-
images express an intense fascination with, and tors support the argument that the images are
perhaps anxiety about, sexuality and reproduc- goddesses. First, the Hindu traditions assumed
tive functions. That the seals portray only male to have roots in the religion of the Indus Valley
animals, with their genitals on obvious display, do not always make sharp distinctions between
supports this supposition, as does the strong the divine and the human domains. The gods
emphasis on the animals’ horns and flanks. and goddesses, as we shall see in subsequent
Still, we must wonder why animals rather than chapters, can assume human forms, and indi-
humans are taken as symbols of male sexual- vidual human beings can come to be regarded
ity. Perhaps these depictions are associated as divine.2 Because of the permeability between
with the human appropriation of animal pow- these two realms, the fact that the figurines
ers. Throughout the world, human beings have appear unremarkably human does not rule out
often sought to incorporate certain qualities the possibility that they symbolize the divine.
they admired in animals. In some cultures, for Second, similar representations of females from
example, eating the heart of a powerful animal the same time period have been unearthed in
was believed to allow a human to incorpo- many parts of the world (figure 1.6). These
rate the animal’s courage and strength, which comparable figurines are almost certainly sym-
were thought to reside in the heart. The animal bols of divine females.3
images of the Indus Valley seals may represent The widespread discovery of such images
a symbolic attempt to obtain such powers. By has led some scholars to theorize the existence
creating and using visual representations of of a vast mother goddess religion that long
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antedated the worship of male gods.4 That women themselves were perhaps regarded as
hypothesis has been controversial and does sacred.
not enjoy universal acceptance among schol-
ars. But whether or not such a wide-reaching
cult ever existed, it is quite likely that the Sexuality and the Sacred
dwellers of the Harappan Civilization vener- The intimate connection between sexuality and
ated a mother goddess. The worship of a divine the sacred may strike some modern persons,
mother figure has a long, deep-rooted tradi- particularly those living in the West, as odd.
tion in Hindu history, and thus it is at least For many today, religion seems more involved
plausible that the Indus Valley images are the in suppressing sexuality rather than encour-
vestiges of what may be the earliest form of aging and celebrating it. To understand the
that tradition. Even if the figurines are not correlation of sex and divinity in the ancient
goddesses per se, it seems evident that in the world, we must appreciate several things about
Indus Valley culture, the reproductive powers the way early humans viewed the world and
of women were revered and celebrated, and their role in it. First, we must bear in mind
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that the reproductive process was the object of of sexuality may have been a way of magically
awe. How new human beings were produced petitioning and assisting the divine forces in
T h e H i n d u T r a d i t i o n s Part I—India’s Early Cultures
by the sexual union of males and females was the crucial matter of continuing life.
a fundamental mystery. The idea that new life
was created by the merger of sperm and egg
did not arise until the late eighteenth and early Proto-Shiva
nineteenth centuries, little more than two cen- Another bit of Harappan archaeology worth
turies ago. That reproduction was controlled by our attention is a seal illustrating a person sit-
powers beyond the reach of human beings was ting in what appears to be the lotus posture, a
for millennia a reasonable assumption. Second, fundamental pose in the Hindu practice of yoga
although the ancients thought reproduction and meditation (figure 1.7). This seal raises the
was governed by forces greater than themselves, intriguing possibility that the earlier dwellers
they often believed it was necessary to cooper- on the Indus—or at least some of them—were
ate with and assist these forces in certain ways. practitioners of meditation. If true, then India
One of the functions of sacrifice, for example, has had an interior-looking, contemplative
was to provide the gods with the nourishment spirit throughout its history. There are other
and raw materials (in the form of meat and tantalizing features to this seal as well. The indi-
blood) they required to produce (or reproduce) vidual is surrounded by various kinds of animals,
life. In this sense, the divine and human realms including a tiger, an elephant, a rhinoceros, and
were dependent on each other. a bull or buffalo. The seated figure seems to have
Third, most ancient peoples believed in the three faces looking in different directions. For
power of what we would call magic. Magic, in
this sense, is the process of achieving a desired
effect through the use of rituals, words, thoughts,
and other technical means. For example, many
societies believed ceremonial dancing could
induce rain. Because reproduction, both human
and animal, was so vital to human survival, it
was often made the object of magical practices.
The mythologies of some cultures told how the
world and its inhabitants were produced by the
sexual union of a god and goddess. In such cul-
tures, men and women might perform ritual-
ized sex acts to ensure the fecundity of the land
and its people. A magical performance imitat-
ing the primordial act of the gods was thought
to provoke them to re-create or to harness the
same creative and procreative powers in the ser-
vice of human reproduction. In the Harappan Fig. 1.7 Pashupati, Lord of the Animals. This soapstone
seal from the Indus Valley displays a figure in a posture
culture, the creation and usage of the soapstone associated with meditation in the later Hindu traditions. (Photo
seals and terra-cotta figurines depicting aspects courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shiva_Pashupati.jpg.)
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found on a large number of Indus seals. In some likely worshiped certain male animals, perhaps
images, people surround the tree, apparently in foremost the bull. Representations of male
T h e H i n d u T r a d i t i o n s Part I—India’s Early Cultures
the act of venerating it. In another, a woman, or sexuality may have been the focus of veneration
perhaps a goddess, appears within the tree (see and may have been used magically to enhance
figure 1.4, top row, third seal from left). In view fertility. Female powers of reproduction were
of the role trees play in later Hindu history, it is regarded as sacred and perhaps revered through
reasonable to conclude that Indus Valley dwell- the symbol of the goddess. Ritual practices
ers regarded the tree as auspicious and probably and the production of images may have cen-
sacred. If subsequent Hindu practice can be tered on ways to incorporate the sexual pow-
taken as a guide, the Harappans may have con- ers of animals and divine figures. Purification
sidered the pipal tree to be a home for spirits rites, evidence of meditative practice, and well-
or the manifestation of a goddess. Interestingly, organized cities suggest the Indus dwellers
the pipal is the same tree under which the Bud- placed a premium on order and restraint. To the
dha sat on the night of his awakening, centuries extent that this is an accurate sketch of Indus
after the dissolution of the Indus Civilization. culture, it indicates that beliefs and practices
were oriented toward the present life here on
earth and not toward a life hereafter. There is
The Absence of Evidence little in the ruins to indicate that Indus dwell-
Perhaps as important as what archaeologists ers thought much about an afterlife or even
have uncovered around the Indus River is what wondered about what might be in store for the
they have failed to find. The Indus Valley was individual after death. Ritual practices seem to
apparently a relatively peaceful culture, since have been chiefly—if not exclusively—for the
few real weapons have been discovered; archae- purposes of sustaining and renewing life in the
ologists have found no traces of spears, swords, here and now. Religious beliefs and practices in
or arrows. And as yet, no temple or house of this culture served a conservative function: to
worship that can be positively identified as a keep things as they were and to maintain the
sacred precinct has been found. It may be that world by honoring and harnessing its powers
the central place of worship in this culture was and respecting its boundaries. And throughout
located in the home, as it is for present-day its history, the Indus society was quite success-
Hindus. In any event, the absence of clearly ful in its efforts. Little seems to have changed in
recognizable temples underscores an important this civilization during its life span.
fact of ancient existence in many parts of the
world: that the sacred and secular, or the holy
and profane, were not sharply distinguished. The Demise of the Indus Valley
There was no separate domain of life that could
be identified as “religious.”
Civilization and the Advent
To conclude our sketch of life in the ancient of the Aryans
Indus Valley, let us sum up the conclusions that
seem best supported by the evidence currently After the discovery of the Indus Valley Civi-
available. Harappan culture was deeply con- lization, modern scholars were faced with
cerned with procreation and purity. Its citizens the task of explaining the demise of the great
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culture and its relationship with the Indo- Today, however, most scholars of ancient
Aryans, a people with whom the Hindu tra- India think the Aryans’ arrival in South Asia
to promote Hindu interests and traditions in peacefully into the subcontinent from Central
Indian politics, and by some Indian and West- Asia around 1600 b.c.e. This is the perspec-
T h e H i n d u T r a d i t i o n s Part I—India’s Early Cultures
ern scholars. Hindu nationalists believe the idea tive held by most scholars of the history of the
that the Aryans came from anyplace other than Hindu traditions. In the opinion of this schol-
India, whether by invasion or even by a milder arly majority, the hypothesis of a relatively quiet
form of migration, denigrates Hindu and Indian migration makes the greatest sense of all the
culture. The proponents of the Out of India available evidence. But as we have seen in our
position use Aryan literature and the absence of consideration of the Harappan civilization, the
archaeological evidence to support their point data relating to ancient cultures is often sub-
of view. Because the issues at stake are highly ject to multiple interpretations, and those who
charged in the current political climate of India, study these data must always keep an open mind
the so-called Aryan question has now become about the larger significance of what they study.
the subject of great debate. The issue has become Thus, I present the Aryan migration theory
as much a matter of politics as of history. with the understanding that future discoveries
In the next chapter, we will begin our study and scholarly arguments may require that we
of Aryan culture and its impact on the devel- revise that position or discard it altogether.5 We
opment of Hinduism. Our examination adopts turn now to explore that hypothesis in greater
the theory that the Aryans began moving rather detail.